Mark Edwards’ Top 5 Reads of 2013
Joining me with his favourite reads of 2013, is the ebook superstar, fantastic writer, and awesome guy – Mark Edwards. 2013 has been a stand-out year for Mark. Following on from his previous success with co-author Louise Voss, he self-published his excellent psychological thriller ‘The Magpies’ earlier this year and tore up the charts. Now published by Amazon, it is continuing to find new fans. Here, he shares his top 5 books of 2013..
My Favourite books of 2013 by Mark Edwards
This has been a brilliant year for fiction, especially crime fiction and psychological thrillers. Choosing just five novels for this list has been even more difficult than trying to choose the perfect Christmas present for my other half. Last night, I finished reading Stoner which made a last-gasp attempt to get into the top five but, although it’s an astonishing novel, I’m excluding it on the grounds that it’s even older than I am.
In an attempt to restrict this list to five books I have decided only to include books that were published in print for the first time this year. This means I have excluded several brilliant novels that every crime fiction fan should look out for in 2014: Elizabeth Haynes’ first police procedural, the gripping and slightly pervy Under a Silent Moon; Alex Marwood’s The Killer Next Door, which is my second favourite neighbours-from-hell thriller of all time; Eva Dolan’s stunning Long Way Home, which is so good it made me want to tear up my own books and weep; and, oh, some bloke called Luca Veste has a book called Dead Gone coming out, which is a superior serial killer thriller that you won’t want to leave on Great Aunt Edna’s chair…All of these except Eva Dolan’s are already available as ebooks.
So, in no particular order, my five favourite books of the year – all of which happen to have been written by women:
1. The Cry by Helen Fitzgerald
I say in no particular order, but this is my stand-out book of 2013 and the best novel I’ve read in a long time. The set-up, in which a couple accidentally kill their baby on a long-haul flight to Australia, is brilliantly horrific. Reading it while holding a newborn baby only added to the stomach-churning thrill. And Helen takes this premise and creates something thought-provoking, sad and, at times, darkly funny. It’s one of those books that is so easy to read that you almost inhale it. I pressed it on everyone I knew. Even my mum loved it and she usually reads Catherine Cookson.
Helen Fitzgerald deserves to be a huge star and this book should have sold billions. That it hasn’t is proof that the world is unfair. You can help rectify that by buying it now. I promise that you won’t regret it. It’s a bonafide work of genius.
2. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Anyone who knows me will be aware that I have a bit of a ‘thing’ for Donna Tartt. The Secret History is my favourite book of all time – like, ever, ever. When I heard that The Goldfinch was coming out I spent weeks desperately trying to get hold of a proof, crying myself to sleep until I eventually won a copy on Facebook.
It didn’t disappoint. It’s a huge novel and contains some of the most beautiful writing I’ve ever come across. It also has two extraordinary central characters in Theo and Boris, an Oliver Twist and Artful Dodger for the 21st Century. Their relationship, especially during the section of the book set on the alien outskirts of Las Vegas, is brilliantly portrayed and they feature in some wonderful comic scenes. It’s true that, at times, Donna Tartt uses twenty words where two would suffice, but this is one of those books where you have to sit back and enjoy the rich, highly-readable language. At its heart it’s also a thriller, with a plot fuelled by a stolen painting, art thieves and dodgy European gangsters.
Reading it was my second best Donna Tartt experience of 2013. The first was when she shook my hand at an event in London. I went all trembly.
3. Kiss Me First by Lottie Moggach
This was a much-hyped book with a fancy social media campaign and posters all over the Tube; as someone who also wrote a novel about the dangers of social networking this year I eyed this book’s publicity campaign with envy. But it didn’t stop me from loving the book. It’s very much a literary thriller, quite a slow burner that becomes more and more gripping as it goes on.
The plot concerns a young woman who is asked to help a stranger commit suicide by taking over her online profile, so that the suicidal woman’s friends and family don’t know she’s gone. Moggach pulls in sinister online communities, autism and the dangers that lurk on the internet in a book that’s about how we connect with other people. Moggach writes with a sly, dry wit that makes Kiss Me First very funny at times. It’s a wonderful psychological thriller and deserving of the publicity it received (he said through clenched teeth).
4. The Treatment by Mo Hayder remains my favourite crime novel: an exquisitely terrifying book that scared me more than anything I’ve read before or since. So I always look forward to a new one from Hayder, and Poppet is one of her best.
First up, it has the best cover I’ve ever seen. It’s so wonderfully creepy. And the contents of the book, at least in the first half, live up to the cover. Residents of a hospital for the criminally insane are being terrorised by a semi-mythical creature called the Maude. Jack Caffrey gets involved and the tension ramps up as one of the most dangerous patients is released. The second half of the book is not as creepy as the first, but it’s still highly exciting and an absolute page-turner. Her new one, Wolf, looks awesome too.
5. The Burning Air by Erin Kelly
I read this, rather appositely, in the heat of this year’s summer. Remember that? Hard to believe a few months ago we were moaning about how hot it was. The Burning Air is actually set in November and is a book of two halves: the present day, when a family gather at their country home and a baby goes missing; and the past, when we discover how a perceived injustice has unleashed a missile of revenge that is, right now, heading towards this family…
The Burning Air has one of those moments, about halfway through, that is so clever and unguessable that it makes me want to bow down to Erin Kelly’s talent. I was so stunned that I had to go back and read the first half again to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind. As with all of Erin’s books, the prose is beautiful and evocative. It’s a truly wonderful book.
Mark Edwards is the bestselling author of ‘The Magpies’ on his own, and co-author of bestsellers ‘Catch Your Death’, ‘Forward Slash’, ‘Killing Cupid’, and ‘All Fall Down’ with Louise Voss. He can be found on Twitter @mredwards and buy his books here - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mark-Edwards/e/B004PP3WV0/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1386964619&sr=1-2-ent
